Research

Public Reason and Its Discontents – Reading Group

Organizer: Prof. Erica Weiss

The struggle to understand what it means to disagree well, or for reasonable people to disagree reasonably is one that many societies face. The ethic of coping with difference through public exchange has long been central to the democratic ideal. What are the rules of the game for public deliberation?  What are the acceptable political cultures of democracy? Today, debates about diversity, the limits of tolerance, political polarization, mistrust in the public discourse, the production of a “post-truth” public sphere, and the deterioration in democratic values throughout the world, broadly defined as “democratic deficit”, have put public reason back in the spotlight. How should people talk politics in the modern era? Who should be part of the conversation? What we have witnessed recently in Israeli politics is rifts not only concerning the content of the political dilemmas, but more worryingly regarding the rules of the game of political engagement between citizens.  Deriving from liberal theories of the public sphere, the public reason framework intends to provide a neutral and universal platform for all to participate in the public sphere conversation. Theoretically, everyone can speak public reason. But many have found that its conditions of participation are restrictive and exclusionary, on the basis of culture, gender, religion, race, class, and more.  This reading group, bringing together scholars from different disciplines with very different opinions regarding the question of public reason, will read and debate the challenge of democratic deliberation in diverse and often polarized societies.